The present invention relates to an arrangement for temporary pre-tensioning of the fork tubes of a telescoping fork that are displaceable with respect to each other.
It is known from vehicle technology, for example off-road motorcycles, to temporarily pre-tension the fork tubes of a telescoping fork that may be displaced with respect to each other before the start of a race in order to improve the start condition at the starting line. For this, an arrangement is required to temporarily pre-tension the fork tubes and/or the telescoping fork.
For example, such an arrangement is known from patent document US 2006/0237273 A1 by means of which the telescoping fork is temporarily pre-tensioned. For this, a securing plate is attached to the first fork tube of the telescoping fork, and includes a receptacle for a locking pin that may engage with a slot of a ring attached to the second fork tube in order to temporarily hold the pre-tensioned telescoping fork in the pre-tensioned condition. The locking pin is guided into a receptacle of the securing plate. To actuate the locking pin, an assigned actuation knob is provided whose exterior thread is threaded into the interior thread of the locking pin. A spring element is also provided between the actuation knob and the locking pin that rests on the securing plate. Upon pressing of the actuation knob, the locking pin is locked within the slot of the ring attached to the second fork tube.
In order to be able to implement various pre-tension positions with the known arrangement, it is necessary to provide an additional locking pin and an additional actuation knob on an additional securing plate. For this, additional components beyond the additional locking pin and additional actuation knob with spring element are required to ensure proper function. The resulting design configuration of the known arrangement is therefore significantly complicated. Also, there is the problem that the locking pins and actuation knobs to actuate the locking pins are freely accessible so that on the one hand, undesired contamination is possible by means of which actuation of the locking pins may be blocked by the entrance of contaminating particles, and on the other hand, unintentional actuation is possible, which is a critical safety factor during vehicle operation.